In 2000, the excuse for purging likely Democrats was getting felons off the rolls; the Republican Secretary of State, who was also George W. Bush’s campaign chair in the state, deliberately chose an algorithm that would disenfranchise thousands of people whose names resembled those of felons. (But not those with Hispanic surnames, to avoid purging any Cubans.) This was way more important than hanging chads or the butterly ballot in cheating GWB into the White House. This year, the idea is getting rid of non-citizens, but again there are lots of “false positives” – both name’s-the-same cases and people who are now citizens though the old data being used says otherwise – and oddly enough the program once again turns out to eliminate lots of Democrats and few Republicans.

Naturally, none of the right-wing pundits pushing the false claim that there are substantial numbers of fraudulent votes cast – thus justifying that other tactic of vote-suppression, the requirement for a state-issued photo ID – seems to have any problem with fraudulently denying the right to vote. I got some static recently for calling the current Republican apparat “enemies of the Republic.” But what would you call people who intend to remain in power by keeping their opponents from voting them out?